Trade News

Each day TFO Canada publishes a sample of trade news on the Canadian import market along with any new, updated or changed regulations and legislations regarding international trade; countries in which TFO Canada offers services and on the export sectors which it promotes.

According to the main results from the HCP’s National Survey of Economic Structures (ENSE 2015), manufacturing industries generated a production value of MAD 409 billion, contributing by 26.5 percent to domestic production with an average annual increase of 5.9 percent.

The value added of the sector reached MAD 93.9 billion, with an average annual increase of 5 percent, while its contribution to total value added fell by about one point to 11.3 percent in 2014, added the public institution.

“These industries have employed nearly 625,000 employees, accounting for over half of total industrial employment, both in the formal and informal sector, and 6 percent of the national labor force aged 15 and over,” said the HCP.

Employment in this sector has grown at an average annual rate of 2.6 percent since 2006, “at a pace below the performance of other aggregates, including production, bringing productivity growth to 2 percent on an annual basis.”|

Based on the analyzed data, an employee of this sector has created, on average, an annual added value of MAD 150,000, almost twice the national average. The sector also employs a strong female work force, as manufacturing industries employed over 191,000 women, corresponding to 31 percent of the total workforce in the sector, about 83 percent of which were skilled laborers.

Women represents more than half of the workforce in the textile and leather industries

The study also revealed that “almost half of these women were employed in the textile and leather industries, while the chemical and para-chemical industry was the least feminized at a 12 percent rate compared with 33 percent in the electrical and electronic industries and 27 percent in the agri-food industry.”

In terms of exports from the manufacturing sector, the survey found that nearly 20 percent of the companies operating in this sector had an estimated export turnover of MAD 112 billion, contributing with 26 percent to the total turnover. This represents an improvement of 6.4 percent on average per year since 2006.

The HCP noted, however, that the export rate hid disparities according to the size and activity of the enterprise. For example, while textiles and leather, accounting to 80 percent of the sector, and the electrical and electronic industries (56 percent) were higher, this was not the case for the agri-food sector, where the rate was below average at 24 percent.

According to the survey, the export effort was more sustained in the large structures, where exporting companies generated 78 percent of sales abroad, about 38 percent, on average, of their production.

On the other hand, the HCP found that “exporting was rather rare in very small companies: 4 percent of these generated a turnover with foreign countries. For small and medium-sized structures, one in four companies has realized a part of its turnover abroad.”

The survey also noted the predominance of three major industries in the sector, which accounted for nearly 75 percent of the existing companies: chemical and petrochemical industries with 29 percent, agro-food with 25 percent, and metal and mechanical industries with 20 percent.

The chemical and petrochemical industries accounted for about 40 percent of the sector’s results in terms of production, VA, and export.

Improvement in the overall investment

The economic and financial indicators of manufacturing industries show an improvement in overall investment. “The investment of industries in the sector exceeded MAD 38.5 billion, up by 13.2 percent, on average per year, since 2006,” wrote the commission.

“Nearly 33 percent of the companies of those who invested have generated an export turnover of around MAD 102 billion, or 91 percent of the value exported from the sector,” the HCP continued, noting that the sector has improved its capital intensity at the expense of employment.

Finally, it emerged from the study that the unavailability of inputs on the domestic market, in particular raw materials, continued to impact “the evolution of the national export offer at higher VA and to affect the benefits Morocco in terms of costs, proximity and deadlines.”